


Weren't we the stars in heaven, weren't we the salt in the sea?

by sareli



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29024901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sareli/pseuds/sareli
Summary: When Dean asks Cas "where to?" he is quiet for just a little too long, and then for way too long, and then long after he sighs heavily and sinks into the Impala.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 36





	Weren't we the stars in heaven, weren't we the salt in the sea?

**Author's Note:**

> my take on the infamous "fanfic gap" and also the next installment of my veritable rampage of adrianne lenker-inspired supernatural/deancas content (title from her song "anything")

When Dean asks Cas "where to?" he is quiet for just a little too long, and then for way too long, and then long after he sighs heavily and sinks into the Impala.

"Tell you what," Dean says to break the silence. "I think a nice, long drive is in order right about now. You up for it?"

Cas looks over at him almost shyly, then nods, just once.

With a stiff nod in answer, Dean starts the car and makes for the nearest State Highway, heading resolutely East until the eerie glow of the bizarre temple at the edge of town fades into nothing and the Tetons loom larger and larger ahead of them.

The moon is full, or close enough, anyway, that the wide, flat plain around them is bathed in silver-blue light.

There is music playing, like there always is, but for once Dean makes no motion to dial it up. It's something softer, unfamiliar, that Cas can't remember ever having heard before. Rather than filling the silence in the car, it runs like a current beneath it, gently swilling depths beneath a resolutely still surface. It is quiet enough that Cas can make out the soft susurrus of Dean’s hands sliding against the wheel. Every so often Cas catches the sound of an exhale leaving Dean's chest, or the rapid flutter of eyelashes against his cheeks out of the corner of his eye.

They drive like that for a while, long enough for the land around them to start sloping up, rippling and folding into bigger and bigger rocks and finally, mountains.

Dean steers the car into a pull-off overlooking the wide, flat valley they just came from, scant lights of little Idaho towns glittering in the distance.

They get out of the car and settle against the hood, looking out. Cas tucks his legs up into a criss-cross beneath him, and Dean is close enough that Cas can feel warmth rolling off him even through his jacket and the knee of his own jeans.

"Wish I had a beer right about now."

Above them, the sky is littered with stars, the Milky Way carving a wide swath through them.

"I would say we could've stopped in town, but it's difficult enough to find anywhere that sells alcohol, let alone after 7pm."

Dean looks at him, a question.

"The town is predominantly Mormon," Cas explains.

"Well, that explains the temple."

“Indeed.”

"Been propositioned to join any group marriages, then?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Probably for the best, you don't exactly look the sister-wife type."

Cas shrugs. "I suppose that's their loss. I happen to think I would make a wonderful wife."

For a moment, that catches Dean of guard. He pauses, blinking rapidly at Cas for a beat or two before coming back to himself with a snort.

"Trust me, dude, you're better off, they're some real weirdos, even for you. I mean, come on. Magic underwear? No thanks."

They lapse back into silence after that.

It isn't that Cas doesn't know what to say. There is so much he could say, so much he still needs to know, things he has painstakingly scripted in his newborn imagination to occupy himself when things are particularly slow at the Gas’n’Sip, but he says none of them.

Instead, he listens.

To the creaking of the car beneath them every time Dean shifts, to the rustling of the layers of his clothes together, to the gentle tapping of his thumbs against his own thighs, following some obscure rhythm that only he can hear.

At some point, Dean settles more decidedly against Cas' knee, light enough that it could be mere happenstance, but present enough to be unmistakable. They stay like that for a while, just looking over the valley.

When Dean notices Cas shivering, they bundle into the Impala and head back into town. The humming of the road beneath the car lulls Cas into a half-slumber which apparently at some point becomes a full doze because the next thing Cas knows, they're pulled up in front of a motel.

"Didn't know where to take you, didn't want to wake you," Dean explains somewhat hurriedly, and it occurs to Cas that he sounds a little bit flustered. "Figured you wouldn't mind just crashing with me for a night?"

A wave of something aching and raw crashes over Cas, a turbid mixture of exhaustion, relief, and outright terror flooding his body and threatening to spill over. For a few fleeting moments, Cas thinks he might start to cry. Instead, he manages a nod, and they both exit the car.

"Wasn't expecting company," Dean says sheepishly, almost apologetically, when the door swings open to reveal the single bed.

Cas just shakes his head, still holding back whatever aching thing sits coiled up in his throat, making speech impossible.

"You can take the first shower," Dean presses on. "If you want."

Feeling the levee cracking all around him, Cas just nods furiously and makes his wordless way to the little bathroom, flips on the light, glad for the roaring of a fan that kicks in automatically just in time to cover up the first sob that escapes his chest.

When he emerges, Dean brushes past him wordlessly to take his turn. The bathroom door clicks shut, leaving Cas alone with the single bed.

It occurs to him that he hasn't so much as seen a bed in months, let alone slept in one.

Cas wastes no more time burrowing into the sheets. His skin is still damp against his clothes as he curls into a tight ball, shutting his eyes against the overwhelm that threatens to take him again.

When Dean slides in gingerly beside him, Cas is nearly crushed under the reminder that they used to do this. _They_ used to do _this_. Before Metatron's betrayal, before Purgatory, before Leviathan, before Eve and Raphael and the war in Heaven. Back when the world was ending for the first time and the walls were closing in so fast around them but at the same time, everything was new. Sometime after those first few last nights on Earth, Dean and Cas would find each other in the dark and just hold on until morning came.

Cas was still an angel, then. His devotion to Dean had coursed through him like holy fire, ablaze with purpose and righteousness, faith and fury. And yet, it was not to be touched, burned so brightly that Castiel knew one wrong move would eviscerate him. And as he fell (that first time) the glow of that fire became at once both a greater temptation and greater comfort, until he had been naïve enough to reach out and try to touch.

What he had wanted then was to own that fire, be so good and glorious like nothing Dean had ever seen before, the stuff of legend, the stuff of fantasy. He would have no choice to be awestruck. He would have no choice but to devote himself right back to Castiel if Castiel could only seize that otherworldly beauty in his own hands, take it in and embody it with his whole being.

Lifetimes have as good as passed since the last time they did this and yet Cas rolls over to face Dean in the bed automatically, his body falling into the old pattern without so much as a thought.

"Thought you'd be asleep already," Dean mumbles. "Seemed pretty beat."

"'Pretty beat' is… an understatement." Cas manages, exhaling.

And then there is nothing but mingling breath and searching eyes as a turgid silence swells between them, and yet again it's Dean who breaks under it.

"God, it's so good to see you," Dean says, his voice throttled somewhere between a whisper and a whine. "Cas, I--"

"Shh," Cas cuts him off, reaches for him, folds Dean's face into the crook of his neck, lets his lips brush against temple as he does so. Dean's hair is still damp from the shower, wet on the skin of Cas' neck. Dean's arms come to encircle Cas' ribs, hands soothing over his back.

Now, as a human, what Cas feels for this other human right in front of him makes his teeth ache, his very bones. It lives in his chest, too, a sense of absence come alive, always groaning and yawning. If it could speak, Cas knows just what it would say— _come here and build a home in me and never, ever leave._

Cas falls asleep that night to the steady thrumming of a pulse against his skin, drifting off before he is ever able to determine whether it is Dean's or his own.

**Author's Note:**

> was not active in the fandom when this happened in real time so excuse my decade lateness, again. there is no rexford idaho but there is a rexburg which has both a mormon temple and a byu campus which i just thought was super fun and flirty and i wanted to include it in this even though i know the show calls it rexford


End file.
